Faculty Rights and Responsibilities

Faculty have the Right to:

Documentation

  • Request verification of a student's eligibility for any requested accommodations. Such verification will be shared with you via BOX. OAA Services is the only office designated to review disability documentation from the student's service provider and determine eligibility for appropriate accommodations based on the service provider's recommendations. Faculty do not have access the student's disability documentation.

Accommodations

  • Expect the student to initiate request to use approved accommodations.
  • If the student is taking their tests at OAA Services, expect OAA Services to administer exams in a secure and monitored environment.

Faculty have the Responsibility to:

Accommodations

  • Identify and establish essential functions, abilities, skills, and knowledge of their courses and evaluate students on this basis. Students with disabilities should meet the same course expectations as their peers.
  • Provide accommodations only to students who are registered with OAA Services.
  • Use a syllabus disability statement and class announcements to invite students to disclose their needs. Learn more about creating an accessible syllabus.
  • Act immediately upon getting a student's request for accommodations by contacting OAA Services (if unsure about request),  by providing the service, or by directing the student to OAA Services for services to be provided by OAA (ie. exam proctoring, eText, other).
  • If a student needs alternative media, please provide OAA Services with syllabi, textbooks, course packets etc, well before classes begin (5 weeks prior to the start of the semester if at all possible) in order for students with disabilities to use alternative media when all other students have course materials. With such timely consideration, students with disabilities who have alternative media needs for accommodations and instructional access will be best served. Converting print materials to electronic format is both labor and time intensive. Alternative media may be print material in audio format, scanned and converted to a read-out-loud format, or enlarged.
  • Work to ensure that all audio-visual materials used in class are accessible (e.g., that videos shown are captioned for students with hearing impairments and that the video format used has captioning capabilities, that videos shown will be made with auditory description in some way or that written transcripts will be provided, etc.)
  • Consider incorporating principles of Universal Design for Learning in your teaching. 

Confidentiality

  • Treat and protect all disability-related information as confidential medical information.

Communication

  • Clearly communicate your testing procedures with the student and with OAA Services (exam length, allowed materials such as calculator/notes/note card, etc).
  • Consult with the student and OAA Services regarding any questions for providing their approved accommodations.

Please Note: Faculty do NOT have the right to ask students if they have a disability. For those students with documented disabilities, faculty do NOT have the right to ask about the nature of the disability. However, if students choose to disclose their disability, this information should be treated confidentially.

To better understand Rights and Responsibilities read our definition of terms to learn the meanings of some words commonly used by OAA Services.


This document is cited from The Ohio State University Partnership Grant, Improving the Quality of Education for Students with Disabilities